In a wireless communications system there is typically a fixed amount of air link resources available for utilization by wireless communications devices for combined control signaling and traffic signaling. In a wireless communications system lacking centralized control, e.g., an ad hoc peer to peer network, the scheduling of traffic air link resources is a challenging task.
At times a single device in a peer to peer network may desire to transmit the same data to a plurality of other devices in the network. One can simply transmit multiple copies of the same data to the plurality of intended recipients. However, this tends to waste the valuable traffic air link resources. It would be beneficial if new methods and apparatus were developed which supported group communications, thus allowing the same traffic signal to be communicated efficiently to multiple other group members.